The German Question, Part One Hundred Twenty-Six

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/B"
"Foreign Policy & The German Question" (Part Five/3)
"Germans In Czechoslovakia" (Part 3)

The leader of the Sudeten German Nazis was Konrad Henlein. Henlein and his associates were essentially instructed by Hitler to keep the pressure on the Czech government, but to avoid agreeing to any solution to German grievances. In the meantime, Hitler instructed the German military to prepare a plan for an attack on Czechoslovakia. There has been some debate by historians whether Hitler ever really intended to launch an invasion of Czechoslovakia, or whether he simply intended to threaten to use force to achieve his aims. I go with the latter. Again, this is not an attempt to "whitewash" Hitler, for while he was evil, he wasn't always stupid. The Czechoslovak military was seen as potentially very good, and given their defensive system and the mountainous terrain, there's no question in my mind that Czechoslovakia would have been one tough nut for Hitler to crack, especially since it is doubtful that Britain and France would have stood by idly, if indeed Hitler had launched an attack. With the German military not fully prepared for war at that point, I can't imagine how they would have successfully fought a war on two fronts; against the French and British in the west, and against the Czechs in the east.* Czechoslovakia also had an alliance with the Soviet Union, but the Czechs looked "westward," especially given that the Soviets were communist, and they didn't completely pursue getting the Soviets involved in this crisis. If, however, you add in the "potential" of intervention by the Soviet Union, there is just no way that Germany could have prevailed. Hitler's plans, however, rattled the German generals, some of whom feared he was going to bring about Germany's destruction if he attacked Czechoslovakia. Some of the less inhibited generals began to plot to remove Hitler from power. This is significant, because it marked the beginning of a limited, but true, and more organized "resistance" to Hitler within Germany.

The problem for Czechoslovakia was public opinion; that is, public opinion in other countries, especially in Britain (and also America), where people tended to favor the German point of view that Germans in the Sudetenland belonged in Germany. The President of Czechoslovakia was Edvard Beneš, and he was a pretty smart man. He believed Hitler wanted not only the German population of the Sudetenland, but Czechoslovakia as a satellite country. Hitler often looked to the German past (fascists often look to the past), and the Czech areas, Bohemia and Moravia, had been a part of the old German Empire, which ended in 1806. Beneš hoped to show the world that Hitler and the Sudeten Germans were not really interested in reaching an agreement.

* France had an alliance with Czechoslovakia, but Britain did not; however, I certainly believe the British would have sent troops to reinforce the French, if Hitler had attacked Czechoslovakia.

WORD HISTORY:
Heal-Like its close relatives "health" and "whole," this goes back to Indo European "koilos/kailo," with the idea of "healthy, unharmed, in a sound condition/state, complete/entire." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "hailjan(an)," a verb form meaning "to make whole, to make sound, to save." This gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "healan," with the same basic meaning. Later it became "helen," before the modern spelling. The other Germanic languages have: German has "heilen," Low German has both "helen" and "heele," depending upon dialect, Dutch has "helen," West Frisian has "hielje," Swedish has "hela," Danish has "leles," Norwegian has "helbrede." Icelandic no longer uses a form of the word.